1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a vehicle roof with two cover elements which selectively close or at least partially expose a roof opening, of which the front cover element is formed as a wind deflector strip which can be swung around a pivot axis located near its front edge and which can be raised at its rear edge over the fixed vehicle roof, and of which the rear cover element is designed as a sliding cover which can be lowered under the fixed vehicle roof by means of a lowering mechanism and which can be moved to under the fixed vehicle roof on slide elements which can be moved along guide rails which are secured to the roof, and in particular, where the wind deflector strip and sliding cover can be actuated by means of a common drive.
2. Description of Related Art
From U.S. Pat. No. 4,684,168, a generic vehicle roof is known in which the front cover element can be raised by a spring which is located in the area of its pivot axis and against whose pressure it can be lowered by a slide element of the sliding cover. The disadvantage of this arrangement is that the wind deflector strip is held simply by the force of the spring in the raised state, so that the spring, in order to be able to withstand even strong wind forces, must be made correspondingly strong; however, this is disadvantageous when the wind deflector strip is closed because of the increased drive forces which must be applied. The same applies to another generic embodiment of a vehicle roof which is disclosed in German Patent No. DE 40 40 825 C2.
In a different context, of a vehicle roof having a single cover panel, providing individual locking blocks for phased interlocking of a slide element of a movable cover part to a part secured to the roof is known, for example, from German Patent DE 42 00 724 C1.